How to Choose Chairs For Your Living Room
Remodeling your living room should be lots of fun! You can get as creative as you want and create the exact look you’ve dreamed of. With endless options available to fit every aesthetic, you’re guaranteed to find something that speaks to you.
Since the living room is likely to be a gathering space for family and friends, a good place to start is with seating! We’re here to help you learn how to choose chairs for your living room and create the home of your dreams.
Things to Consider When Choosing Chairs for Your Living Room
Before we dive into how to choose chairs for your living room there are a few items to consider:
- What size space are you working with?
- How many people do you plan to have in the living room?
- What fabrics speak to you?
- Do you prefer certain furniture materials?
Determining the Size of the Living Room
The size and layout of your space not only dictates what you can choose for living room chairs, but it also helps you get a sense of what certain pieces will make your room look like. Larger rooms might be suited for large couches or sectionals while smaller rooms do better with loveseats or chairs.
Having chairs in place of couches helps break up the visual weight of your living room furniture plus brings with them the added bonus of being easily shifted around to meet the different needs of parties, gatherings, and everyday use.
Number of People Commonly Using Living Room
How many people do you think you’ll frequently have in your living room? You don’t need to plan seating to accommodate huge parties if you only have small gatherings or host holidays a few times a year.
It’s important, however, to make sure you’ve got adequate seating for the consistent number of people who will be using your living room. Is it just you? Your family? A few guests? You’ll want to make sure you’ve got enough seating for the average usage so that you and others are comfortable.
Chair Fabric Options
When deciding which chairs to choose for the living room, consider what fabrics you want to incorporate. Are you a fan of traditional fabrics like cotton? Is leather family room furniture something you’re interested in? For those who have opposition to real leather, there are plenty of high quality, vegan alternatives to real leather furniture on the market today that are sure to suit the needs of those looking for cruelty-free hide options.
An important factor for choosing living room chair fabric is deciding how much maintenance you’re looking to provide for its upkeep. For example, while leather is exceptionally durable, it also comes with it the added maintenance to make it last forever. Know what you’re committing to when you choose a living room chair for your remodel!
Chair Building Materials
Last on our considerations for how to choose chairs for your living room is the materials they’re made from! Do you prefer wooden bases? Metal furniture? When you’re remodeling your living room, don’t be afraid to mix materials like wood, metal, fabric, and leather. While it may sound strange on paper, the reality is mixed materials create a visually dynamic space and are very popular in modern home decor styles.
Choosing the Right Seating for the Living Room
Now that we’ve examined some of the preliminary questions for how to choose chairs for your living room, let’s consider the options available for the pieces themselves! For living room seating, you’ll most likely be choosing from:
- Couches and sofas
- Sectionals
- Loveseats
- Traditional chairs
- Recliners
Couches and Sofas: Living Room Furniture Classics
Traditional couches and sofas are the typical go-to seating options for the living room. They’re perfect for larger rooms and can accommodate 3-4 people very easily. They also provide a range of styles. You can choose from a more formal couch (which often sacrifices a bit of comfort for design, but it’s an option) or go for a very casual sofa meant for everyday use.
An additional option available in some traditional sofas is a pull-out bed option. This is perfect for those who host overnight guests from time to time, especially at the holiday season! It is important to note, however, that sofas with pull out mattresses do tend to have more limited design options available. With the additional functionality also comes a surprising amount of additional weight, too. Best to have those delivered by the professionals!
Casual Sectionals for Maximum Seating
Sectionals can be very polarizing when you’re choosing chairs for the living room. Often for more informal spaces, sectionals provide a ton of seating space but lack the versatility of chairs, loveseats, and sofas. Most commonly you choose a sectional to fit a specific space and must choose a permanently fixed arrangement (choosing left arm facing or right arm facing). This makes sectionals much more difficult to adapt to new spaces if you were to move or want to relocate it to another space in the house.
The option to get around this versatility problem is to consider modular sectional sofas! While the options for design may be a bit more limited for these, if you find one that fits your style it can be a great way to add seating and versatility to the living room.
Smaller Loveseats for More Seating Arrangements
Smaller than the traditional sofa but frequently designed as a pair, loveseats offer less seating but also take up much less visual and physical space in the room! When you’re learning how to choose chairs for your living room, consider the options available to you with a loveseat that may be more limited with the full size couch.
In a smaller room, a full size couch will take up more of the available space and will, by default, limit the number of suitable furniture arrangements. A loveseat pairs perfectly with chairs or a recliner to add more options for when the need arises or you get that urge to feng shui your living room!
As with traditional couches, choosing a loveseat for the living room can range from traditional to contemporary. You’ll find a variety of fabric choices and may even find some models with pull out mattress options.
Choosing Chairs for Your Living Room
It wouldn’t be much of a guide for how to choose chairs for your living room if we didn’t discuss traditional chairs, now would it? Traditional chairs come in endless design variations from bare bones seats to ornate wingback chairs. For every design you can find options to fit every style. For example, while you may consider a wingback chair to be a traditional throwback, you’d be surprised when you find loads of modern options for the updated look!
Chairs take up much less visual weight and offer the most arrangement options for any item on our list. Perfect for curling up with a good book or sitting with someone else in a chair for two, chairs have a special place in our heart!
For those looking to get more than just a comfortable seat out of their chair, there’s the zero gravity chair. A hybrid of chair and recliner, zero gravity chairs not only look great but provide endless health benefits such as lower back pain relief, improved blood circulation, better sleep quality, and reduced stress. Some options even provide special features such as massage and heat therapy to go the extra mile for your physical and mental health while providing a very comfortable place to sit!
Getting a Recliner for the Living Room
Swinging into the last item in our guide to how to choose chairs for your living room is the recliner. Arguable a chair itself, the recliner differs from a traditional chair in that (you guessed it) it reclines! An added comfort boost to a versatile piece of furniture.
Not all recliners are created the same, however. Traditional recliners are known for being comfortable, if a bit bulky. Their downfall is that they place focused pressure on certain parts of the body which can lead to lower back pain and sciatica symptoms.
The answer to that is the zero gravity recliner. Noted in our section on chairs, the recliner portion of zero gravity chairs is where the many health benefits stem from. They differ from the traditional recliner visually since they can pass as a regular chair or lean back into zero gravity position for a comfortable recline that evenly distributes pressure along the body. The clear winner in the zero gravity vs. traditional recliner debate, try one out and we think you’ll find this is the best of both worlds and fits into formal and casual living room designs!
Redoing the living isn’t a time for stress and anxiety. It’s the perfect time to let your creativity shine and create a look that reflects your personality! Whether you’re going for a traditional sofa setup or choosing a zero gravity chair to pair with a smaller loveseat you can’t go wrong as long as you love what you’ve picked.
Want more details on why you’ll love a zero gravity chair? Read all about what a zero gravity chair is and how it can help your mental and physical health.
